ToughButterCup

I'll pop out, have a look and get back to you ....

You are very welcome indeed. Your first post I see, so you probably don't know how to use the site search engine: it's very powerful: lets take the first question: '... What’s the most/least people have paid for connecting utilities? ...' Take the key words : connecting utilities . Top right of every page > search copy and paste > connecting utilities - and this happens over 1000 results - too many Now play with the filters for example connecting AND utilities or in content titles only like I have linked to here There are more search options, some are extremely useful, others not so much. Your effort really will be repaid. There's very little that hasn't been covered before .... Go on, enjoy poking round Ian

Plastimatts or ground mats like these are maybe an idea.... We bought 10, over the years have smashed two, and we should get our money back on the other 8. Three or four visitors have commented on them - and every lorry driver does: on our mud , they are a godsend. Even better if you have a digger and can sling them to a bucket ....

We bought £50 worth of offcut of artificial turf (5m by 5m) and put it outside the bits of house we wanted to protect. (kitchen, back door) I ran a branch of our hose and sprayer to the artificial turf edge, and put a boot cleaner there, so everyone could scrape and spray their boots before using the loo. Its been down now for 4 years and has real grass and other stuff growing through it. The chickens do their bit of cleaning up of bits of food, and contribute just as much mess as they clear away. The dogs hoover the rest up Wait for a couple of dry and preferrably windy days , the mud crusts up well, and then get a leaf blower on it - comes up like new. Best £50 we spent.

Thanks for that: didn't know they could be adjusted. I'll get on to them. Air-tightness isn't an issue because it won't be tested in 'closed-but-not-shut' mode. The orientation of our house is such that it's open to the southwest, albeit protected somewhat by large mature trees 25 meters away. But we aren't tucked away in a convenient wind-free microclimate nook. The window opens into a Winter Garden, and I'm almost sure its orientation contributes to windspeeds especially if they are coming from the southwest. Bit like a funnel. I'll give Craig ( @craig ) a ring. Yes @Ferdinand, she's going to put a large summat-or-other in the Winter Garden - so that the area will become more like a Kevin Mc-Wot's-Is-Name -type breeze corridor. Ya daren't say that ( breeze corridor) out loud in Lancashire. Get lynched. Does it annoy your cat @joe90 ? Does ours ...

Our Gaulhofer slider howls just like a wolf. Doesn't bite, just howls. It's huge (3m or so), gorgeous, easy to move, everyone that sees it loves it, plays with it. Asks how much it cost. ? It came with a free wolf; every time the wind blows from the South West it howls. It only does so if the window is closed over, but not shut (locked). The window needs a baffle of some sort - perhaps like a finger protector. But this one needs to stick a sock down the wolf's maw. Ideas? Thank. Ian

There are templates (the RIBA has one) but they're used on large projects. I spent weeks trying to answer the same question myself about four years ago. Maybe there are one or two now, but they're not in widespread use I think. You are in excellent company here. We've almost all been through this mill, damaged by it, pissed off by it, bitten by it, call it what you will. After 5 years at it, I'm so punch drunk I just about manage to look daily at the bottom line (whats left in the bank) . Sometimes I can only manage it weekly, sometimes I wince and avoid looking. The other day SWMBO - a super-careful administrator with a gimlet eye for uncomfortable levels of detail said ' Just book him whenever , we'll afford it somehow.' Could have knocked me flat. Building gets you like that . I think there are probably one or two BH members who have been able to do what they like, when they like here. Its the norm to be scared legless by the money issue.

Heavy Metal LED strip eh? Bit of a tear-away aren'tcha, eh? Go on admit it. Next job : embarrass the kids even more.

I'm not sure how the Exit Fee relates to the question of whether I should be charged at a different rate than the one I was on... ? Perhaps I didn't make it clear. British Gas took over from Ebico when that company failed. Can British Gas, after taking over Ebico's customers, charge me more than Ebico did? Can it charge me a standing charge when Ebico didn't?

'Twas Jezza of blessed memory who told me to be quick and, ably backed up by that Scottish Sparkler (see what I did there ? Bonfire night and all that?) @ProDave I opened an account withEbico (who, when unmasked called himself Robin Hood Energy). Well Ebico , just as Jezza predicted , blew its fuse. And along comes British Gas, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tell me that they have my best interests at heart. Yeah, right..... Except that they say they're charging me a standing charge .... can they do that ? Don't they have to offer me exactly the same tarrif as I was on with Ebico? (16 p per kWh; 0 standing charge) (Got the capitalisation right there didn' I @SteamyTea ? )

Maybe this shines a bit of light in the hole?

I was hoping it was like hair gel or something . So @Onoff could contemplate making his own heating system

There, right there: that's the conflict of interest I alluded to earlier in the thread. The builder or in our case plumber who came to see our place, sucked his teeth and said; "Yer wan' a 10 killerwot boiler 'n sum decent rads in thur mert " nodding in the direction of our partly completed house. "But it's being built to a passivhaus standard" says I. "Aye, 'as whay tha needs nu more than 10 killerwots" The guy specifying the system often gets to put it in. Not in this case.

Some people might call such a resource a book, @SteamyTea. Written slightly tongue in cheek, but I agree with you. Static resources : not the thing of the moment are they? Since I am now - at last - the proud of owner of a SunAmp UniQ, your comments about phase change piqued my interest : In the context of SunAmp equipment (Sorry to mention the trade name, I'm not sure whether there are other producers) how do the terms power, temperature and energy relate to phase change materials? And you slip another (for me white noise term) '... specific...' in there. '... Specific energy capacity ...' What might specific energy capacity mean in SunAmp terms? Do we know what the phase change material is in a SunAmp?

Thank you very much indeed @SteamyTea

Pushing an open door with us. Some shockingly misogynistic behaviour on the part of our ICF supplier's MD.

If we wanted to follow your advice, could you please recommend an online resource that would help us read up for ourselves? Thanks . Or maybe a brief explanation from you...?

There's a conflict of interest that will prevent that. And a powerful one at that. The designer is often the installer. Many threads on BH attest to that. It's the elephant that stalks this discussion board. In plain sight. Absolutely bloody right Dave.

There's a map of the Radon areas of the UK here. It's self-explanatory : you're either in a Radon area or not. If not - guess what - ya don't need a radon barrier, unless as @Dave Jones says you have a condition specifying you need it. If you do, and if you need a sump ( as we did) nobody came to inspect it, nobody checked that we have an external vent, nobody could give a stuff. Except if you get irradiated by enough Radon, you die early.

Excellent. There is another new member from Oxford today. You might want to drop him (her) a PM? Actually meeting another self builder is always a real boost. Good luck

In relation to the neighbours issue: 4 years after open hostility from all our neighbours, the issue, such as it was, has gone away . It's not all smiles, but normal civility has broken out. Things will settle down.

Welcome. Used to work in Oxford, which neck of the woods are you hoping to build ? Fings ain't cheap round your way eh? Used ICF for our build. Your approach seems eminentIy sensible.

Hi, you planning to build in Oxon?

I'm with @joe90 on this one. A simple drip channel (under the top of the upper external lintel) might solve your problem. But the system shouldn't fail just because there isn't a drip channel.....?

have you any detail on that ....?